Nintendo Music Debuts with 40 Years of Tunes for Switch Subs
November 12, 2024
Nintendo has released a new app designed to delight gaming fans who have embraced the music featured in popular games such as “Super Mario Bros.,” “The Legend of Zelda” or “Pokémon.” Nintendo Music parses nearly 40 years of musical history from the Japanese gamemaker, available free via the Nintendo Switch Online subscription service on iOS and Android. Users can stream songs or download for offline listening, building their own playlists to share or accessing Nintendo-curated programming. Recommendations will propagate based on a fan’s Nintendo Switch play activity.
Engadget reports the user interface “pretty much looks like Spotify,” with tracks “organized by game, so people can play the whole OST for specific titles if they want, but they can also listen to character playlists.”
Both Game Developer and Nintendo Life criticize the app for not crediting Nintendo composers, which seems likely to change. In a news announcement, Nintendo advises of ongoing improvements.
Gizmodo calls the app surprisingly “solid…even at this early stage,” but laments a lack of “deep cuts.”
“The app isn’t yet a comprehensive collection of Nintendo’s musical history,” is the verdict from The Verge, which nonetheless enthuses over “the extended loop feature” and its ability to extend certain songs “to 15, 30, or 60 minutes.”
The Nintendo-curated playlists riff on themes like “victory” and “boss battle,” also offering mood playlists that assemble tracks with similar vibes, like relaxing songs for studying or bedtime listening.
“One feature that’s probably unique to the service is spoiler prevention,” Engadget observes, noting that “if the listener adds a certain game to the setting, the app will hide the soundtracks that could give away a surprise ending or an unexpected final boss, among other potential spoilers.”
No Comments Yet
You can be the first to comment!
Leave a comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.